A Very Valuable Article for You to Read

Last week I ran across a great article that I thought was very valuable. I sent a copy of it to several people in my network and the feedback has been so positive that I felt I should go ahead and post it to my blog so all of you can get access to this powerful idea…

Several years ago I found this cool website called ChangeThis where people could post a proposal for a “manifesto” on an idea that they felt was truly important. Whichever manifestos got the most votes were then fleshed-out completely and turned into full articles. As an example, a manifesto I wrote two years ago called: “Achieving Business Excellence”… was the genesis for the new book I have coming out in September called “Awesomely Simple – Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas into Action.”

My friend Keith Ferrazzi just sent me a copy of his new manifesto on “Lifeline Relationships.” This is an incredibly powerful idea, one I have been a huge proponent of for years and actually underlies what I believe is the single most important thing I’ve learned so far in my life: you become what you focus on and similar to the people that you surround yourself with.

Keith’s manifesto is absolutely spot on. This is exactly what people need to focus on to improve their careers and lives. As you read this article please think carefully about how the culture in your organization may or may not support these sorts of relationships. Keith gives some very startling data in this manifesto about the impact of not having a corporate culture that encourages vibrant and trusting relationships and the numbers should be a huge wake-up call. To that point, I was listening to a webinar by Patrick Lincioni yesterday on his excellent book: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (if you have not read it you need to!) and he really put it nicely when he said:

“Most organizations spend a lot of time trying to be SMART — good at strategy, marketing, finance, technology and those sorts of things. This is absolutely necessary… but not sufficient. Where real competitive advantage lies is in being both SMART and HEALTHY. A healthy organization is one with minimum politics, minimum confusion, high morale, high productivity and low turnover.”

I could not agree more with Pat and it was precisely because the financial downside and upside of this issue was so dramatic, that I created a training program directly to address it called: Building a Winning Culture that teaches people exactly how to create a corporate culture based on strong relationships, embracing change and high-performance teams. This is without question one of the biggest issues facing most companies today and a hidden gold mine for those organizations that are able to build and sustain a superior culture based on top talent + continuous innovation + extreme customer focus.

I wanted to post this link to Keith’s manifesto on my blog because I feel it has some really great information in it and would also likely be something you might want to share with a lot of other people in your organization. I hope you find it as valuable as I did and that you pass this blog along to anyone and everyone you feel could benefit from reading this great manifesto! I am confident you will enjoy reading what Keith has to say:

Comments

I’ll be going to read Keith’s Manifesto next as I agree this is a key to success. I was interested to read Inc.’s May issue interview with Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com. His stellar success is attributed primarily to emphasis on the “happiness” factor for both employees and customers.